


Slack Tide

by impermanent



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 10:53:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8053555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impermanent/pseuds/impermanent
Summary: The stars align and grant Ruby and Sapphire a mutual day off to spend together.An all-in-one story to encompass all 5 themes of 2016's rupphire bomb. Partial epilogue to Such is Fate.





	Slack Tide

Ruby walked with a skip in her step, brushing off the odd looks from grown adults much like herself aside from their destination. Despite how she was dressed, she wasn’t headed to a fancy beachside restaurant, or to one of the new skyscraper townhomes that had seemed to pop up overnight, like glittering glass lined mushrooms, stretching just shy of the summer clouds that condensed in fluffy patches over the ocean. Unlike them, Ruby, in her suffocating blazer, and slacks that hid under the hem hightops and funky colored socks, was bee lining it to the arcade. The tourists and day-trippers could stare for all she minded, film her and put it on Tubetube, title it something like “grown ass woman overly excited by children’s videogames” because it didn’t matter. She was going to see _Sapphire_.

A mutual day off was hard to come by when Ruby worked the tried and true nine-to-five and Sapphire the retail struggle. But somehow, it had happened. Or, as close as they could get, which was a mutual half day. Fate had smiled on the pair of them, the planets had aligned, and the gods gave them their blessings.

Ruby weaved her way between excited children (some taller than her) and loitering teenagers ( _all_ taller than her), blinking machines that screamed chiptunes and flashed in neon colors, and a stray ski ball or two. All was executed without as much as bumping a shoulders, or inhaling too much of the dizzying cloud of stale popcorn smell and partially evaporated syrupy soda that hung around the arcade, only intensifying the deeper she got into the dark, low ceilinged building.

It was as if she were the heroine in one of the many blinking cabinet games that lined the only slightly peeling walls, braving life and limb (or more accurately, an awkward apology to a mother for running headlong into her child) to rescue the beautiful princess held captive at the end. Though the princess in this case would be rescued with or without Ruby there to save her. Her shift ended in four minutes.

To ruin Ruby’s analogy of the situation, which she was very much enjoying, there was no final battle at the end. She simply waltzed up to the prize counter, and gave the little bell a soft tap to grab the girl’s attention away from where she stood, hunched over sorting prizes into their respective bins.  

When the soft sound went unnoticed amidst all the other, much louder, synthetic dings of pinball machines and coin games, Ruby tried her voice.

“Ya come here often?” Ruby yelled over the background noise, leaning an elbow on the glass countertop at an awkwardly high angle. This place was made for children, one would think the counter heights would be, too.

A high ponytail of bouncy curls jolted, the lively fluff of her hair giving more emotion than her subtle body language did. Sapphire turned over her shoulder, flashing Ruby a wide smile and saying something like “hold on,” though her voice couldn’t be heard over the deafening sounds of generalized fun, and her lips were painted that pretty shade of periwinkle Ruby had bought her for her birthday. She easily got got too lost in _looking_ to try lip reading.  

Sapphire promptly turned back around to where she had been previously carefully unloading a new box of junky plastic prizes and upended it without hesitation. Toys flowed out in chaos. Finger puppet aliens flooded into the slap bracelet bin, lollipops ended up with the gel pens, and a good handful of stuff landed on the sticky floor, likely to stay fused with it foreve. Sapphire gave the cardboard a good trampling to flatten it before discarding it somewhere unseen by customers and returning to Ruby.

“Alright, go on.”  She coaxed in that coffee sweet voice of hers, mimicking Ruby’s posture from the other side of the counter and looking over at her from under the bill of her dorky Fun Land hat.

Ruby cleared her throat, only partially for dramatic effect; the air in here was gross. She wouldn’t be surprised if the place was shut down for asbestos in the walls sooner or later.

“You come here often?” Ruby repeated, this time with a playful raise of her thick eyebrows, and a very obvious draw of her eyes up and down Sapphire’s body.

Sapphire snickered behind a hand, no longer pristine and soft but dry and riddled with ticket paper nicks, her nail polish chipped at the tips, but all soon forgotten as the hand grabbed for her ponytail, taking a lock of hair and twirling it over her shoulder to play along. “Unfortunately.” She said, sickly sweet before she couldn’t hold the laughter in any longer. “You coming here is the highlight to my day, you know.” She added, her voice much lower and soft as it usually was.

“At least you get to wear this adorable uniform.” Ruby joked, reaching to tug the bill of Sapphire’s hat down over her eyes, but the girl was too fast for her. That trick had only worked the very first time.

“Oh, yes, I love it.” Came Sapphire’s flat reply, turning her defensive dodge into a step back to give Ruby a twirl. “These knee length khakis do _wonders_ to my legs.”

“and that tucked in button down,” Ruby gave her a sarcastic thumbs up and an upward jerk of her chin in approval, like the teenagers that would come in to bother Sapphire.  

“Adds at _least_ twenty pounds, doesn’t it?” Sapphire gave the stiff fabric around her waist a tug outwards and it stayed, starched like a fifty’s petticoat and making her look like a stiff, collared marshmallow in a ball cap from the waist up.

“I always thought you would look cute with your hair up.” Ruby mused, slowly sliding down the smooth countertop while she admired, head in her hand, until her upper half settled flat on the cold glass that housed the ‘nice’ prizes, which were pretty much Crying Breakfast Friends _everything_. She could never wrap her head around why that show was so popular. Cartoons used to be good. “I really do like that hat, though.” She added with a sudden jerk of her head up from where her sweaty forehead had been pressing streaks into the glass.

“You can have it, in…” Sapphire squinted at the clock, pushing up the hat to see past the shadow it cast on her face in the already dim arcade lighting. “Two minutes.”

Ruby visibly deflated in a sigh. “Too long.” She whined, flapping her hands on the counter like the angry children Sapphire dealt with daily. It got her nothing more than a friendly hair ruffling.

A minute went by of Sapphire effectually flattening the back of Ruby’s hair. Ruby would have said twenty had passed, were she not watching a toy wrist watch through the glass tick. She couldn’t tell what time it was through the condensation of her huffy breathing, but the second hand had defiantly made its rounds. 

“You want some candy?” Sapphire offered abruptly, abandoning Ruby’s hair to grab a plastic bucket, letting it drop to the counter with a dull thud. The resounding shock to the surface would have been enough to get Ruby up from her pouting if the promise of sweets didn’t.

Both hands set to rummaging through the bucket excitedly, looking for the good stuff that was sure to be hidden at the bottom, before Ruby paused, abruptly looking to Sapphire with mild concern. “Isn’t this _stealing_?” She whispered, glancing around cautiously lest a manager be there to see. Come to think of it, she had never seen one. Sapphire dealt with difficult customers very well on her own.

A sucker was plucked off the top and popped into Sapphire’s mouth as the girl shook her head, her ponytail swaying behind her. She threw the wrapper over her shoulder. “I cleaned up some kid’s puke _twice_ today. I earned it.”

“Same kid both times?” Ruby asked with a grimace.

Sapphire nodded, pulling the sucker out from between her lips with a wet pop before pocketing another, then a brightly wrapped piece of bubblegum.

Ruby couldn’t argue with that.

* * *

 

Pockets and mouths full of not stolen candy, they made their way out hand in hand, triumphant. To Ruby’s disappointment, the building did not crumble behind her and a pixelated _THE END_ did not float down from the horizon. A snapback was promptly plopped onto her head, however, and a kiss that likely stained blue given to her right cheek, so it was worth her struggle.

Sapphire breathed in a deep breath like it was the first she had taken in ages, and skillfully started to unbutton her shirt one handed, unwilling to untangle her fingers from Ruby’s. “The beach is so wonderful in summer.” She sighed on the subsequent exhale.

Ruby would have disagreed vehemently, saying it was groggy and sticky and made her feel like she was trying to breathe through a wet towel, but she could only watched side eyed as one by one, the cheap plastic buttons popped open. For a moment, she forgot where they were, and the disappointment that played across her face when her roaming eyes slammed straight into the tank top Sapphire wore underneath must have been very apparent.

“You really think I’d wear nothing under this grimy shirt?” Sapphire joked, snatching back her hand only long enough to shrug it off and tie it around her waist, hiding what she could of the charming cropped khakis.  

 “I can dream, can’t I?” 

Sapphire thought it over obviously for a moment, humming thoughtfully to keep Ruby’s attention on her rather than navigating them through the crowd of people that flowed more viciously than a riptide down the boardwalk, before hooking a thumb into the neck of her top and giving a quick tug. The fabric bounced back instantly, but the flash of colored lace and _skin_ was enough.

“ _Sapphire!”_ Ruby yelled in a hushed whisper, her voice going high and strained as she clapped a hand to the neck of Sapphire’s top, holding it in place as if it would take the risqué plunge again without her intervention. “Not _here.”_

Sapphire giggled softly, completely unconcerned because, other than Ruby’s little outburst, no one had any reason to be looking at them.  “So later, then?”  

Ruby, finally letting her hand fall back to her side as she realized that resting it on Sapphire’s chest seemed a lot less family friendly out of context, nodded vigorously. 

* * *

 

 True to form, every other nine-to-fiver had taken a half day on this Friday to take their significant other out. In fact, it seemed like there were more people on the boardwalk than there were cars in the little town to have gotten them here. Ruby should have expected as much. It was pay day after all.

 She had tried to plan it all out; dinner at Sapphire’s favorite restaurant on the boardwalk, which was hard enough to figure as the girl claimed to be impartial but shot down Ruby’s suggestions all with a soft, but disagreeing “hmmm”. Then it would be a relaxing walk down the strip, that in Ruby’s weeks of planning had been uncrowded, to the little ice cream parlor they were both so fond of, which wouldn’t be out of their favorite flavor as it was today. Instead they ended up at the end of Ruby’s plan, a comfortable stroll down the pier, curbing their hunger with pocket candy. It certainly had more people pulling creepy fish from the waters below than Ruby had had in her fantasy of their first date night in _months_ , but it would have to do. She would make it do.

The old wooden planks seemed to stretch out for miles, the end never drawing closer despite their leisurely pace, only the smell of salty ocean water becoming stronger and stronger, the warm breeze picking up more and more the further out they got.

For living most of her life beachside, Ruby hardly ever went. She hated the heat from the sun and the sand, and how it clung to every inch of her body, despite only her feet having come into contact with it, and Sapphire disliked the only part Ruby actually enjoyed: the water. She hated how cold it was, even after hours in the summer sun, and the spray that made her hair clump together, the salt that got in her eyes. The actual beach wasn’t really a place for them, but _near_ it was beautiful. The breeze cooled by the water and the old wood warmed by the sun, the soft sound of waves crashing under them as the tide came in. It was a perfect median between the two extremes.

For Ruby’s taste, it was still a little on the warm side, but she could ignore it.

“It’s nice up here, out of the water.” Sapphire said softly, pulling them over to a gap that appeared in the wall of people lining the railing, a space just wide enough for them both to hop up on the rusty bottom bar and lean over the top one, just like the signs told you not to. Sapphire’s hair billowed over the edge, taking the wind like sea grass as she leaned just a tad further, her whole upper body bent over the water. For a moment their eyes met with a mutual smile, that beautiful mismatched blue like ocean water and sea glass against the brown of Ruby’s eyes, bright and warm as the setting sun behind her. Sapphire’s chest rose with intent to speak, and Ruby wondered if she would ever stop feeling like her whole body, from the tip of her nose all the way down to the soles of her feet, would ever stop feeling completely full of butterflies around her.

“You ever spit over the edge?”

Ruby decided it would never happen.

“No.” Ruby snorted, knocking her shoulder against Sapphire’s as the girl grinned at her, a threat to do it gleaming in her eyes.

“No, Sapphire, that’s gross!” Ruby laughed, louder than she meant to, but both of them were used to the stares by now.

“I was just gonna share my gum with the fish.” Sapphire snickered, blowing a bubble and popping it in the least obnoxious way Ruby had ever seen it done as she straightened up, using her hands as a tether to lean back. The old railing let out a low creak in distress.

“Oh, excuse me for denying them your charity.” Ruby mock scoffed, rolling her eyes with a smile.

 They stayed until dark, eventually threading their legs through the railing so Sapphire could give her tired feet a rest. Ruby followed simply to join her. They listened to the pier drain slowly of people, until it was only themselves and a few overly affectionate couples, much like them.

Wordlessly, Sapphire took her place on Ruby’s shoulder, slumping over while the wind brushed her hair over them both like a stringy blanket that stuck to your lips and tickled your neck.

“The sunset was beautiful, I don’t normally get to enjoy it from the arcade.”

 “Thanks.” Ruby said confidently before Sapphire’s lips had even closed, only to have her confidence embarrassingly shattered, a blush creeping onto her cheeks through its cracks.   

Sapphire turned to her, peering confusedly through her bangs that the wind whipped around her face. “No, I said—“

“Yeah yeah yeah, I know,” Ruby backpedaled, letting go of the salt crusted metal to begin explaining. She would need her hands for this. “But you’re supposed to go,” She put on her best impression of a sultry expression, which looked closer to the midpoint of a sneeze than bedroom eyes, lowering her voice to something soft like Sapphires, though still plagued by her high pitch , and said “‘ do you know what’s even more beautiful?’”

“…ok.” Sapphire squinted at her, biting the inside of her cheek trying not to laugh, and waited for further explanation. “Do you know what’s _more_ beautiful?” She mimicked, almost perfectly, only that her playful act of a sultry whisper and flirty smile was actually _attractive._ So much so that Ruby felt her hands go stiff and her heart try to hide its shy enjoyment in her throat.

One year or one thousand, it didn’t matter. Looking at Sapphire was like looking at art, where the portrait stared back at you with the same intensity you looked at it.  She never made it hard to breathe, only made Ruby forget she ever had to.

“A-and than I go ‘what?’” Ruby swallowed around it, eyes locked on Sapphire who for the life of her wouldn’t stop making that face, slowly morphing into a knowing smile. “And you say ‘me’.” Fingers slowly squeezed the top of Ruby’s thigh. “Well, actually, you literally say _‘you’_ , but—“

 “I wouldn’t say you’re _beautiful,_ per say.” Sapphire interrupted, finally taking her eyes off Ruby and letting the poor girl catch her breath.

The breath she drew in though was exhaled as a playfully outraged whine of “whaaaaat?” drawing out the word over the slow rumble of moving water.  

Sapphire was quick to slap a band aid over the jest, patting the imaginary thing onto Ruby’s knee in comfort.  Even before she said it, a laugh was caught in her pink cheeks, ready to burst out in front of her words like trying to speak around a mouthful of cotton candy.  “I’d say you’re more _smokin’ hot.”_

Ruby stared, dead faced for as long as she could, which was hardly a second, before letting out a little “pft” between her sealed lips.

“And adorable, probably my favorite person on the whole planet,”  Sapphire began to list off casually, counting on her fingers while eyeing Ruby’s growing smile from under her windswept curtain of hair.

“woah, slow down there.” Ruby giggled, grabbing Sapphire’s counting hand because she could tell by the way Sapphire spoke that there were well beyond ten things on this mental list she was reading from. Ruby was sure of it, in fact; she had been read excerpts on occasion. The heat from the summer air was more than enough, she wouldn’t be able to breathe around her shirt collar if Sapphire added much more to the warmth slowly spreading down Ruby’s neck. “ I think you’re mixing me up with _you_.”

Sapphire’s come back was a kiss, as gently as she always was, a welcome slow press of cool lips to hers. The feeling lingered in little zaps of excitement and admiration on the sensitive skin even after she pulled back.  

Then Ruby kissed _her,_ as overeager as ever, like all the time they spent physically apart today was agony and the hand on the back of Sapphire’s neck the anchor to make it stop. She pulled back as abruptly as she had ducked in, nearly knocking the side of her face against one of the railing bars but being too preoccupied to realize it. 

“But, uh,” Ruby said before even breathing, taking an awkward pause instead to fill her lungs enough to talk, rubbing her lips together with the pleasant feeling of shared lip gloss.  “I brought you out here to ask you something.”

 Sapphire’s eyebrows raised, or, her bangs shifted as the after effect. It was rare Ruby actually saw her eyebrows, though they were as kempt and perfect as the rest of Sapphire’s face always was.

“Oh?” She hummed, waited patiently while intrigue curled her hands into her lap, clasp together a little more snuggly than she usually would hold them.

Nerves started to take control now that she was actually here, not just planning things in her head, or sometimes on sticky notes. They robbed Ruby first of her hands, which were put to work picking pills off her slacks, and tried to take control of her vocal chords, putting a wobble in her voice as she fought. “W-Well, you know I really like you,”

Sapphire patted a little hand over her mouth, drawing in a quiet gasp before saying flatly “I had no idea.”

“Quit it.” Ruby said in good humor. She leaned over and knocked her shoulder into Sapphire’s gently, but hard enough to bring a whine from the splintery wood under them. If they weren’t both quite so small, the noises this pier had been making would have been worrisome. But it had carried the weight of thirty something others when the sun was still up, it could wait till Ruby had finished.

“I just, y’know,” Ruby shrugged, eyes rolling to the rippling reflections of light on the water’s surface, taking a moment to just _think_. “Wanted to see if we could make things _official.”_

Sapphire was _different_ , so much so that it was almost sickening that Ruby’s subconscious compared her to any other person Ruby had had even a flicker of attraction to. If whet Ruby had felt were only flickers, then Sapphire was the torch atop a light house on stormy nights. She was the fire that roared in the hearth of her childhood home, the one her parents _shared_ for the six years they could stand it. Sapphire was calm assurance and comfort, and if she had stayed this long, Ruby had to be something similar to her.

Only the gentle waves answered her, slowly making their way to the highest mark on the pier’s old wooden legs.

“Official?” Sapphire said back, only after one of the longest pauses of Ruby’s life.

 “i-if you’d wanna be my girlfriend.” Ruby blurted back before Sapphire had really finished, wanting to avoid another silence at all costs.  “If that’s ok.” She added, as if she were asking to barrow her dad’s car.

Waves rumbled in Ruby’s ears again, treacherous and black under her feet as her eyes overlooked the sparkles of city lights that danced on the peaks.

 “…I thought I already was.” Sapphire said softly, after what felt like _years._  

“Yeah, but--!” There was no irritation in Sapphire’s voice, but Ruby still found herself feeling on edge. Well, she was literally on the edge of the pier, but figuratively as well. She just needed to hear that _yes._ “I just wanted to ask.” Ruby said so quickly the words ran together. “So I know what to call…” She paused again, gesturing in a wildly spasm of her arms between them, constricted a bit by the snug shoulders of her blazer. “This.” 

Sapphire hummed quietly, thinking for a moment before asking “Is this why you were so excited for tonight?”

Ruby nodded in vigorous little shakes of her head, rustling the curls in her hair while she just stared out at sea. It felt like if she opened her mouth, she would never be able to close it again for talking in circles.

“Were you worried about my answer?”

Ruby nodded again, this time only once, curt and quick.  

“You know I’m gonna say yes.” Sapphire smiled at her, a soft chime of giggled following her words. She had perfected the way of doing it such that Ruby knew the laughter was never _at_ her. It was amazing, really, but a lot about Sapphire as.

 “ _Really!?_ ” Ruby’s eyes snapped back to Sapphire, nearly giving herself whiplash in the turn from ocean below her to pretty girl beside her. Her hands jerked to grab Sapphire’s, holding them tight.

“Why would I say no?” Sapphire grinned, scooting the fraction of an inch left between them. “With all this fuss, though, I was almost expecting a ring.”

 In the next second Ruby had jerked her hands back, stuffing them into shallow pant pockets to search for something, then to her jacket pockets when it wasn’t found “I’ve got somethin’”

“Ruby,” Sapphire laughed, placing her hand atop frantically fumbling fingers. “If you grabbed one of those junky plastic rings, I _swear_ ,”

 “No no no, wait,” Ruby slurred together, finally extracting the little plastic wrapped package she was looking for. She extended her hand proudly to Sapphire, toothy smile stuck in place with renewed confidence that felt like it would last a lifetime. “I found him, _way_ in the bottom of that candy bucket. The best stuff is always at the bottom.”

This time, the clap of a hand to cover Sapphire’s gasp was genuine.

“I can’t believe you kept this from me for so long!” Sapphire almost whispered in her excitement, quickly unwrapping the crunchy plastic and shoving it down her tank top and in to her bra. She needed both hands to appreciate this, and littering was gross. Immediately she slapped the jelly amphibian against the back of her hand, shivers of childish joy lighting up her face at the familiar cold, wet slap it made before slowly peeling off. “I had one of these when I was like, eight.” She said, raising the little toy frog by its jelly leash and slamming it against her hand again. “It got stuck in my hair within seconds.”

She pulled her attention away from the prize long enough to give Ruby another kiss, quick and with more force than before. She pulled away with a face dead serous, right hand squeezing the squishy frog while she spoke. “I’ll be your girlfriend if you’ll be mine, and I get to keep this frog.”

“Deal.”

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you squint and turn your head sideways i got all the themes in there.  
> Seasons because its summer, date night because date night, college AU because its set after SIF, alternate designs because Sapphire's oh so flattering Fun Land uniform and Ruby's desk job attire, future vision because its an epilogue. I am grasping at straws here but i did it.  
> Even through the homework deadlines, i refuse to skip a rupphire bomb if i can help it at all. 
> 
> Thank you for reading, and i hope you had as much fun as i did writing these two dorks.


End file.
